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Monday, 6 January 2014

In a piece today on his Telegraph Blog, Harry Mount made this casual assertion in the context of the Queen being a sound constitutional bulwark:

"...there's a steady source of alternative power when normal political life breaks down – as at the last election, when Gordon Brown, the hermit of Downing Street, desperately tried to cling on even though he'd lost the election."

That comment is about as far from the truth as it is possible to get. All the accounts I have read of those few days of negotiations back in 2010 (and that is a lot) show that he played his constitutional role correctly and as soon as it was clear the game was up, Brown wanted to go. If anything the opposite of what Mount says is true. Cameron and Clegg actually wanted more time to cement their deal but Brown had had enough and went to the Palace to resign. Clegg is on record as trying to dissuade him from resigning so quickly in their final phone call.